Veterans Week part 5

This is Grant Lewis Hansen, my uncle and mother's brother. He was a 4-time World War II survivor and former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force under President Richard Nixon. Uncle Grant survived three separate sinking ships and fought in eight major battles at sea while in the Navy and received a Purple Heart after being wounded in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The ships that were sunk were the battleship California, the heavy cruiser Northampton and the aircraft carrier Hornet.

He later became an Aerospace manager who played key roles in development of the Thor and Centaur rockets. In 1968 Hansen was tapped by Roger Lewis, Chairman of the Board of General Dynamics, to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development. While at the Pentagon, he helped manage the F-111 and C-5A aircraft programs, served as a delegate to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and held a top intelligence-gathering post.

He shared family dinners with close friend and astronaut Neil Armstrong, and his children often played with those of another pioneering astronaut, William Anders.

(Information gathered from San Diego Union-Tribune and Paso Robles Press)